This invention relates to an automatic coffee maker capable of providing coffee from raw coffee beans through a process of roasting, grinding, and brewing.
The applicant has previously proposed coffee makers capable of providing coffee completely automatically from raw coffee beans as described in Japanese Patent Applications Hei. 2-24697, Hei. 2-50240, and Hei. 2-150268. With these coffee makers, the raw coffee beans are roasted, cooled, ground, and then the coffee is brewed in a serial type procedure wherein each operation could not begin until the preceding operation had been completed. In contrast, with the fully automatic coffee maker proposed in Japanese Patent Application Hei. 2-417843, by providing a temporary holding tank for temporarily holding and cooling the roasted coffee beans, it became possible to perform the process consisting of roasting through cooling and holding simultaneously and in parallel with the process of grinding through brewing.
However, with any of the coffee makers of the prior art described above, because the heating of the water for brewing was begun after the completion of the grinding of the coffee beans, and also because the hot water was poured in over a certain period of time after all of the ground coffee had been supplied to the brewing means, first, there was the drawback that time wa required before brewing would begin after the completion of grinding. Second, there was also the problem that there was a marked difference in the brewing of the coffee between the start of brewing and the end of brewing, such as, the brewed coffee being too strong at the start of brewing (start of the pouring of the hot water) and too weak at the end of brewing (end of the pouring of the hot water), thus making it impossible to consistently brew good-tasting coffee.
Thus, the primary objective of this invention is to avoid the problems of the prior art described above by providing a coffee maker which is capable of shortening the length of time from the grinding of the roasted coffee beans to the brewing of the coffee, thus shortening the length of time required to obtain the brewed coffee, and, moreover, to provide a coffee maker for which there is no large difference in the brewed coffee between the start of brewing and the end of brewing, thus making it possible to consistently brew good-tasting coffee.